Simple looks can still demand good specs

Civilization IV is powered by the Gamebryo middleware product. It's a wise choice for a developer looking to get a working prototype relatively quickly, but the trade-off in visuals is apparent. Of course, this may have been more of a design decision than a direct result of the chosen technology: a turn-based game appeals to a different demographic than the latest FPS, and envelope-pushing visuals may not be high on the priority list for such gamers. Overall, there's a decent balance between graphics quality and system compatibility, with a definite skew toward the latter. This is evidenced by the game's very low system requirements and the lack of detail when zoomed, particularly in unit models. While opening the game up to a wider audience is appreciated, more eye candy for more powerful systems would have been appreciated.

Graphics options are sparse, but the game scales well from low- to high-end systems.

'Low' graphics settings at 1280x1024.

'Medium' graphics settings at 1280x1024.

'High' graphics options (with high-detail terrain) at 1280x1024.

The game's forgiving nature - at least in terms of required hardware - made testing a bit difficult. It took some time to dredge up a system old enough to meet the publisher's minimum hardware requirements. Like many strategy games, Civilization IV is heavily CPU dependent. Printed on the box are generous requirements, but even at a resolution of 800x600 with Low detail settings, the game chugged at less than 10FPS during animations with a 1.2GHz AMD Athlon processor. For decent gameplay at the lowest acceptable resolution (1024x768), an Get it! AMD Athlon 64 2800+ is required.

Moving beyond 1024x768 with greater detail settings begs for an associated bump in processor speed. With the same system variables (512MB RAM / 128MB GeForce 6600GT) and only a change in processor speed, I didn't hit a CPU wall until reaching 3.8GHz for an Intel Pentium 4. At that point, the game was running at a steady 30+ FPS, and only an increase in system memory or GPU would offer up higher performance. For reference, a system with YouGamers' recommended requirements gave a steady 35FPS at 1920x1200. Above all, feed the game enough processor cycles first and prioritize the GPU second.